Death
...For the Whole World to See

Among those who breathed that mix of smog and air of change in early '70s Detroit were the Death band of the three Hackney brothers. Three wild niggerz who presented a savage hard-rock, aligned with their fellow citizens. Yet, on one hand due to their unpalatable battle name and on the other because of their skin color, still frowned upon in those years by the velvet-bottomed folks at Columbia Records, they never got to release any LP. The self-produced single from '76 wasn't enough to save them from oblivion.
Luckily, the music revolution which was merely embryonic at the time and of which they were a part, led to the emergence of independent labels. One of these, Drag City (Flying Saucer Attack, Royal Trux, Palace, Smog, Pavement), which solidified in the '90s, has retrieved all their material and released it in this posthumous collection, bringing back to light their only seven tracks.

Exceptional tracks that showcase the ferocious rock made in Detroit filtered through the Afro-American roots of Bobby, Dannis, and David Hackney, starting with “Keep on Knocking”, with the sensual and black singing reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix's voice, and “Rock’n’Roll Victim”, with its glam aspirations where they sound like the black version of the New York Dolls but with the same firepower of Fred “Sonic” Smith. Somewhat naive tracks, like “Let the World Turn” where a psychedelic drunkenness atmosphere à la "Funhouse" is interrupted by a drum solo as fast as it is useless. Naivety, perhaps born of urgency, but compensated by the awareness displayed in gems like “Where Do We Go From Here?”, which combines an airy chorus with a hard-funk jam reminiscent of Parliament by George Clinton, or “You’re a Prisoner”, a bridge between MC5 and their black identity. The element that nonetheless characterizes these Death and their fellow citizens is their inherent prophetic value, another piece supporting the thesis that punk in Detroit was just around the corner. Listening to “Freakin’ Out”, with vocals à la Jello Biafra and the derailing stop'n'go guitar seemingly straight out of any “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables”, and the final “Politicians in My Eyes”, where the urgencies of early Clash (see the lyrics, which seem to be written by Joe Strummer of '77) explode in a fiery heavy-metal finale, and no one will be able to deny it.

Another gem from the MotorCity of the early '70s. The black counterpoint to the struggles of John Sinclair's White Panthers. Definitely my nostalgia record of the just-ended 2009.